The Flaming Lips NYE Freakout 2012, feat. Yoko Ono and the Plastic Ono Band
The venue was done up in true Flaming Lips fashion, and I admired the lights and balloons and enormous mirror ball as vast improvements to the vacuous, concrete space that is the Coca-Cola Events Center in Bricktown.
The opener was Phantogram, a three-piece band with a drummer, a guitar and a synthesizer, whose dance music was so bass-y that my esophagus must have thought it was experiencing an extended earthquake. No one really danced, which might have been because it was early or because the music was so out of line with what we expected to see next. They seemed genuinely psyched to be there, and having come from New York City, forsaking New Year's Eve there, I was surprised.Next up was Yoko Ono and the Plastic Ono Band. As I had been laboring under the assumption that there had to have been some young indie band that had, shamelessly, named themselves after a forty-year-old album, I was surprised to find that it was the actual Yoko Ono (if not the original Plastic Ono Band...guess they were serious about the "plastic" part) who would be playing. During set-up, I noticed Nels Cline, my favorite Wilco guitarist, setting up his own equipment, and I began to be excited.
I found Yoko's introduction both tedious and shameless. It was a ten-minute video montage of Yoko Ono and John Lennon, featuring numerous (positive) reviews of her own albums and artworks, calling her a visionary of unsurpassed talent, and clearly exploiting her life with John in her desperate need to make herself relevant.When they finally did take the stage, what struck me first was how very alarming Yoko's cleavage was. Her outfit wasn't super age-appropriate -- a tight, deep-cut coat+vest, white with a sequin skull picked out on the back in silver, plus a top hat -- and I couldn't decide whether I thought it was ridiculous or wanted to applaud her for it. The band were all wearing the famous white t-shirt with huge black print declaring "War Is Over," except for Sean Lennon, whose shirt said "We Are Plastic Ono Band".
Yoko started in a weird, keyless a cappella. The band eventually joined in, and continued to play pretty basic rock or blues or funk in the background, while Yoko wailed over them. I was most intrigued, musically, by the rare solo given Nels Cline. Also the weird resemblance Sean Lennon bears to his father, which he seems to have intentionally accentuated with his hairstyle, beard, hat and glasses. He played guitar and bass alternately, but never said anything. I wondered if he felt overshadowed by his parents, and why he would choose to go on tour with his crazy mother, who was displaying forty-year-old pictures of her vagina on the Flaming Lips' big video screen at the back of the stage while they played.They left the stage for the moment, and my overall impression was that I was glad I had seen such a historical icon live and in person, but that it wasn't an experience I would probably care to repeat.
The Flaming Lips took the stage, and Wayne did his customary stint in his "space bubble," finally rolling over me for the first time (that only took, what, four shows in three states?). and they started right in on fan favorites, which surprised me. It made a lot more sense in retrospect, but they played "She Don't Use Jelly" (follow that link to my video on YouTube) very soon after taking the stage, at about 11:30. That didn't leave them a lot of time to do the countdown, etc.
So they brought out a man whose job it was to read the declaration of "Yoko-lahoma Day," in honor of Yoko Ono having decided to spend NYE in Oklahoma, with us and the Lips, and the two bands collaborated on "Give Peace a Chance". Here's the video of all that wonderfulness:
Then it was time for the countdown, and the world exploded in showers of confetti and enormous balloons. When the folks on stage had finished hugging and kissing each other, and Wayne had carried his wife out on stage and kissed her quite thoroughly, the music began again.
Sean Lennon took the mic and did "Happy Christmas (War Is Over)," which I took to be the theme of the entire show, seeing as it's both relevant and (somewhat) timely. I was amused to see that Sean needed a lyrics sheet to sing the words. I wonder how he feels about his dad's music. Here's the video:
After a few more collaborative songs between the Plastic Ono Band and the Flaming Lips, the Lips were alone on stage again to do a full set of their own music.
The encore was Flaming Lips, performing only Beatles covers. Here are "Strawberry Fields" and almost all of the 15-minute version of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)," since I ran out of memory before it trailed off. The second encore was "Do You Realize??" which was both fitting and in character. It was a fantabulous New Year's Eve.
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